01/03/2015

Lately I've been working on a series of puppets as a late Christmas present for my neice and nephew. I love making toys because I can use up scraps of yarn and they come together quickly. I improvised this octoptus puppet and thought he turned out pretty cute. I went a little scrap-crazy with him!

Here's how I did it:

Sport weight yarn- I have no idea how much, I just grabbed reasonably color-coordinated scraps

US Size 7 double pointed needes

Head/Body

Cast on 48

Rds 1-12 Knit

Rd 13 (k5 Kfb) x8 (56)

Rd 14 knit

Rd 15 (k6 kfb) x8 (64)

Rd 16-18 Knit

Rd 19 (k6 k2tog) x8 (56)

Rd 20-21 knit

Rd 22 (k5 k2tog) x8 (48)

Rd 23-24 knit

Rd 25 (k4 k2tog) x8 (40)

Rd 26-27 Knit

Rd 28 (K3 k2tog) x8 (32)

Rd 29-30 Knit

Rd 31 (K2 k2tog) x8 (24)

Rd 32 Knit

Rd 33 (K1 K2tog) x8 (16)

Rd 34 Knit

Rd 35 k2tog x8 (8)

Cut tail, pull through all stitches and secure

Legs

Pick up 6 stitches along the bottom of the body with one US7 dpn

Cast on 8 stitches onto 2 more US7 dpns using thumb cast on

Rd 1 join in the round and knit

Rd 2 k6 (k1 p1) x4

Rd 3 k6 (p1 k1) x4

Repeat Rounds 2 and 3 until leg measures about 3" from body

(K2 k2tog) x 3 k2 (11)

k5 (p1 k1) x3

(k2tog k1)x3 k2tog (7)

Cut tail and pull through, secure end

Make 8 legs total

Weave in ends

Attach safety eyes and you're done!

What I like about this guy is that you can put the legs on your fingers like a glove, or put your whole hand into his head. One thing I wasn't completely happy with is how big his head/body turned out. I think next time I'll try US5 dpn for the head/body to make that part a little more compact.

12/10/2014

In January 2013 we had Natalie evaluated by the school system. She had been home for about 4-5 months at that point and it seemed like she was over the roughest part of her adjustment and was ready for school. Or as ready as she was going to be. The evaluation went poorly. There were 3-4 of us, plus Natalie, crammed into a small room filled with preschool-type objects. The therapists (PT, OT, speech), tried to engage Natalie in different activities to assess her abilities. They had gotten a Cantonese interpreter to come, and he was translating all the instructions into Cantonese. Natalie hated it all. She refused to participate, she threw toys, she scratched, she flopped on the floor. She said 2 words during the entire thing. Mainly "No". The interpreter said that she had said the Cantonese word for watch, but I wasn't convinced. At the end of the evaluation she was assessed at the 18-24mo level, except for speech, which was worse. I was frustrated. I knew that she could do a lot more than she had demonstrated at the evaluation, but I had been there. I couldn't deny that she had certainly performed at the 18-24 mo level.

So off she went to 4 year preschool for the last 3 months of school. She learned 3 things in preschool. She gained a devotion to the daily schedule. Like, she might have a fit if it wasn't followed exactly. She learned that she was expected to do things with the class, although the compliance with that expectation was low. She learned that she loved school. I guess that was probably the best thing she could have learned.

Kindergarten started off rough, too. She was clearly learning things, but her compliance and behavior were uncertain at best. I got a lot of notes home about her behavior. We had her IEP in Feb this year, and her teachers were encouraging. They were excited about her scholastic progress, but her behavior...Even so, they were so excited about her progress that they started talking about "mainstreaming". I freaked out. I told them "You can't! She's not ready! I don't want her mainstreamed until I'm sure she can fly."

Sometime in early spring this year, she seemed to catch her stride. Her performance took off, her behavior improved. The notes changed from "Natalie had a tough day. She couldn't get along with the other kids" to "Natalie sat on the floor and played with R for 5min." Are you kidding me? A focused 5 min of play? With another child? This is unreal!

Now we're 3 months into 1st grade, and we just had parent-teacher conferences. This is what I learned about where she's at now:

Behavior: very good. Occasionally has some issues with one disruptive child in the class, but it's gone from daily issues to weekly.

Reading: She has learned all the Kindergarten sight words. Is now being introduced to 1st grade sight words. She did not appreciate the transition (she's not a fan of being challenged), but her teacher has no doubt that she will have learned all the 1st grade words by the end of the year. In other words, she'll be caught up with her peers. She participates in group reading activities, answers questions at the smart board and sits in circle time participating for up to 90 min.

Math: She knows basic addition from 1-5. At this point the teacher asked me what my goals were for math. I gave her kind of a weird look, aren't the goals the teacher's job? I said, "Catch her up! If she can catch up to 1st grade reading, she can catch up to 1st grade math!"

Speech: Apparently, at school Natalie has been expected to say full sentences verbally, not just put them into her Talker (an iPad with a voice output app). My jaw dropped at this. "You mean, she's been saying, out loud, things like 'I want my Talker' and not just 'Talker'?" Yep. She can verbally generate an entire sentence when she knows that's the expectation. Apparently, someone's been taking advantage of Mommy! Vacation is over, girl! It's time to say sentences at home!

It's crazy. In less than 2 years Natalie has gone from only being able to demonstrate an 18-24 mo level of development to being about 1 year behind her age-group. With the strong possibility of being caught up with her age-group, at least scholastically, within the next 6 months. We're a long way from "normal school". She has a lot to work on socially and scholastically, but one day I think I will be able to see her mainstreamed.

11/11/2013

Today is Veteran's Day, and if your kid's school is like my kid's school, you got a note sent home on Friday reminding you to send your child to school in red, white and blue today. Here's how that reminder played out at my house. On Saturday I went through Abby's closet with her, and found an appropriate outfit. I said, "l'll be at work on Monday morning, so remember to wear this, OK?" And this morning I got a text from my husband asking if Abby was supposed to wear the outfit or bring it to school so she could change into it before the assembly this afternoon. Now, props to my husband and daughter for even remembering, because I'll bet Natalie went to school in purple and her favorite flower shirt, and I'm just hoping Chris' outfit sort of matched.

For me this is just another example of why we need school uniforms. I'm through with school costumes. I'm not talking about the kid-generated costumes. Abby could go to school in a silver and teal polka-dot skirt with a gold and purple striped shirt every day as far as I'm concerned. As long as she dresses herself and her butt is covered, I really don't care. No, I'm talking about the school generated costumes. The notices that come home on Monday telling me to dress my daughter in a poodle skirt for 50's day on Wednesday. A poodle skirt, really? Because I just happen to have one in my child's size in the back of the closet. And of course it's the week after Halloween, so I can't even dig through the costume section at Goodwill.

Here's my question: who are these costume days for? I can guarantee you that Natalie doesn't care that I scoured Goodwill for a Poodle-esque skirt, or that I discovered an unexpected white T shirt on a shelf and dug Abby's jean jacket out of the back of her drawer. She looked super-cute when I was done, but let's be honest, she's not even aware that there was such a thing as "the 50's". And if I could explain it to her, I'll bet she'd say "so what" if she could.

No, the only costume day my kids care about is Pajama Day, and I think they're more excited about picking a stuffed animal to bring than about wearing pajamas. You'd think that Pajama Day would be easy for me to pull off, but not so much. It involves finding the one pair of school appropriate pajamas that they own and making sure they're through the laundry cycle. With four kids this is no easy feat!

So, school administrators, I think it's time. Bring back the uniforms. Sure, they're ugly and somewhat uncomfortable, and Abby will complain constantly, but I will back you up every day. I would much rather fight that battle than slap together one more last minute costume. Please, help me out before I need to figure out an old lady wig and dentures for 100's Day!

10/29/2013

Yesterday Natalie and I had a disagreement. She started asking for something while I was feeding her. I handed her her Communication Board to help her with the request. If you haven't seen one of these, it's basically a 10x12 laminated folder with 30 or so pictures pasted on it. Each picture had a word like "I", "put", "that", etc. Simple, and reasonably effective, if quite limited. Natalie pointed to "I", "want" and then said "Nat Nat's phone". I told her "OK, but you need to wait a minute." She waited about a second, then repeated her request. I pointed to the picture on her board that said "wait". She looked at me, looked at her board and pointed to the word "No".

I probably shouldn't find this as wonderful as I do, but one year ago this girl fell into a temper tantrum at the slightest frustration. One year ago? Heck, 8 months ago at her school evaluation she started flopping back and yelling 2 steps into a simple matching task! Now we're having a conversation, and even a calm and appropriately handled disagreement. It's a beautiful thing.

Yesterday Natalie and I had a disagreement. She started asking for something while I was feeding her. I handed her her Communication Board to help her with the request. If you haven't seen one of these, it's basically a 10x12 laminated folder with 30 or so pictures pasted on it. Each picture had a word like "I", "put", "that", etc. Simple, and reasonably effective, if quite limited. Natalie pointed to "I", "want" and then said "Nat Nat's phone". I told her "OK, but you need to wait a minute." She waited about a second, then repeated her request. I pointed to the picture on her board that said "wait". She looked at me, looked at her board and pointed to the word "No".

I probably shouldn't find this as wonderful as I do, but one year ago this girl fell into a temper tantrum at the slightest frustration. One year ago? Heck, 8 months ago at her school evaluation she started flopping back and yelling 2 steps into a simple matching task! Now we're having a conversation, and even a calm and appropriately handled disagreement. It's a beautiful thing.

05/20/2013

About a week after David was born Dan said to me, "You must really like that baby. You kiss him every time you pick him up." At first that just seemed like Dan exaggerating, but I paid attention over the next couple of days and it turned out that I did. Every time I picked David up I kissed him. I hadn't noticed because it came so naturally. Because that's just what you do with babies; you kiss them. Lots.

A little while after that comment it hit me- no one ever did that for Natalie when she was a baby. When she was an infant she lived in a hospital. They fed her, changed her, bathed her, and probably even cuddled her when they had time. But I'll bet they almost never kissed her. Because that's something you just don't do for your patient in the hospital. No matter how cute that little baby is.

So it's no surprise that Natalie has never been much of a snuggler, or a kisser, and that it took a few months at home before she could allow me to graduate from blowwing kisses to actually kissing her cheek. She still rarely kisses me back when I put her to bed at night, even though she wants me to kiss her. I've accepted that, and I'm fine with giving her the time she needs to be ready to return kisses. But the fact that Natalie isn't really into kisses has never deterred Chris. No matter how many times he gets scratched or yelled at, he gets up in Natalie's face and asks for a kiss or a hug. Last night it finally paid off. At bedtime Chris got right up in Natalie's face and said, "Natalie, can you give me a kiss?" And instead of scratching him, she leaned over and kissed his forehead (!), complete with a kissing sound (a huge speech therapy improvement).

02/10/2013

As of February 7 Natalie has been at home with us for 5 months. Tonight I was looking at pictures of her from when she first arrived, and all I can say is "Wow! She's come a long way!" So, in honor of her 5 month anniversary at home, here is a list of some of the things she has learned to do:

* Climb onto the couch. That's right. When she got here, she was too weak to climb onto the couch. She now stands up on the couch, bounces on the back cushions, walks along pews at church...It's pretty remarkable.

*Go up and down stairs by herself.

* Climb into the bathtub without help.

*Climb into the van, get in her carseat and turn to sit down without assistance.

*Climb a playground ladder by herself, climb a rope ladder with minimal balancing assistance, and most importantly (in her eyes) go down a slide without being held. Do you have any idea what kind of abdominal strength it takes to sit up and go down a slide? Natalie does, because it sure wasn't happening a few months ago!

*Take off her shoes, socks and pants by herself. Still a little help needed on shirts, but, hey, shirts are hard!

*Reach for objects that are above her head (abdominal strength, again)

She has gone from roughly 5 words to 50-100. I've lost track. My last official count was in November. It was 30 then (2 months after coming home), and she keeps adding more.

*She has learned to ask for help rather than crying (well, most of the time), and request the specific toys or books that she wants.

*She has learned her colors, letters, shapes and numbers, and is starting to learn the letter sounds.

*Most importantly, she's finding her place in the family. She requests games of Ring Around the Rosy with Abby and Chris. She has kissed Chris (I'm still in shock about that one!), she brings David toys when he's crying or in the bathtub. Apparently you can't take a bath without toys. And (my favorite), she shrieked with happiness the last time I came home.

She's got a long way to go. I could go on and on about all the things I'd like her to learn, or that we will be working on in therapy, but we'll be working on new skills for a long time to come. Tonight I'd rather focus on her accomplishments.

02/05/2011

Some may have noticed that I haven’t written a post on Celebration of Discipline in a while. I’ve been avoiding this for a long time. In some ways, I’m still avoiding it. I’ve read the chapter several times, and I’ve found great take-home points in it. There are some wonderful quotes.* But when it comes to putting it into practice, I don’t want to do it. I’m not entirely sure how to assimilate this discipline into my life, and I don’t want to experiment with the ideas that I do have.

The discipline is Solitude. Foster alternatively calls it Silence in the chapter. Either way, it’s been scaring the pants off me.

Like I said, there are some great points in the chapter, starting with Jesus’s pursuit of solitude (“He went out to a lonely place and prayed,” is found throughout the gospels.) There’s a great quote about the necessity of solitude for living in community, and the necessity of community for experiencing Godly solitude. Silence is described as “the act of listening”. Rather than being a complete ban on speaking, the Discipline of Silence is all about control of the tongue; the control discussed in James 3.

Foster speaks compellingly about the reasons for practicing the disciplines of solitude and silence. It’s all about listening to God and trusting God. I want the results, but I don’t want to do the work to get there. I know enough to know that the acts of Solitude and Silence involve quieting me, and I don’t like that. And Foster also discusses another consequence of practicing Solitude and Silence which sounds even less appealing- “the dark night of the soul”- a time of spiritual dryness. To give him credit, Foster describes this phenomenon in about as positive a way as one probably can, but it still doesn’t sound like very much fun.

The practical portion of the chapter he calls “Steps into Solitude”. That makes sense. Solitude and Silence are definitely things that require steps, and likely baby steps, at that! Step one is finding pieces of solitude throughout your day. Step two is curbing our tendency to explain ourselves and our actions- embracing silence and allowing God to justify and speak for us. Step three- try to go an entire day without words. Step four- 3-4 times a year take a few hours to examine your current life and some goals. What are your one year goals? What are your 10 year goals? And step five is to take a silent retreat lasting 2-3 days.

They’re all great steps and I can definitely understand how they build on one another. But even step one sounds daunting. It’s not that I don’t believe there are pieces of solitude within my day that I could be capitalising on. I know they’re there! But right now I can’t even use the bathroom without having some form of entertainment available. And then there's the racket of stuff constantly running through my brain. Putting down the book before I enter the bathroom sounds hard enough. I can’t imagine trying to shut off the commentary in my head, too! Foster says, “the fruit of solitude is increased sensitivity and compassion for others.” Of course I want that, but it’s going to take quite a bit of sweat to get to the place where I can enjoy that fruit.

*Quotes from the chapter and from James are below, in the first comment.

01/30/2011

I’m afraid I might have come off a bit crabby about cooking with kids in my last post on the subject. I’m not (completely) crabby about it. It can stress me out a bit to do all the prep work, clean-up and supervising of dumped flour, but overall cooking with kids is an activity that is classified as “a good thing to do” in my mind. This is why:

Abby and Chris are enjoying their first meal cooked out of Abby’s cookbook Pretend Soup. They’re eating quesadillas made with refried beans and lots of cheese. Not the most adventurous of meals, perhaps, but I actually didn’t expect them to eat refried beans in the first place. I was surprised to see how much they liked them. Abby even started eating cold refried beans out of the can while we were making the quesadillas!

So, cooking with kids may not be easy, but when I get results like in the picture, it's worth it.

Here are my cookbook resources:

We have two kid cookbooks- Mom and Me Cookbook and Pretend Soup. It wasn't that easy to find cookbooks for preschoolers, but I think both of these are appropriate. Most of the books I found in amazon seemed more suited for 1st-3rd graders. Mom and Me Cookbook is definitely the cuter of the two. It has lots of photographs -of the foods, the steps in the recipe, as well as happy, aproned children cooking. The recipes seem pretty simple and look reasonably appetizing, even for adults. For me the big downsides are that all the kids in the photos are female, (I’d like to encourage Chris to cook, too!), and half the recipes are desserts. I love desserts, but we don’t exactly need encouragement to cook more of them!

Pretend Soup is my favorite cookbook so far. When I first looked at it I thought there would be no way that Abby would want to make the recipes. There are lots of vegetables involved. She’s reasonably adventurous with her eating habits, but would you expect a four year old to want to cook a recipe called “Zucchini Moons?” She hasn’t wanted to make that one yet, but overall this is the cookbook she wants to use more often. I think it’s because of the way the recipes are set up. The first 2 pages are written for the adult- a little introduction to the recipe with notes about how to set things up, and the recipe written in the way you’d expect to see it in a cookbook. The second two pages are for the kids. The steps of the recipe are drawn out in cartoon form on 2 facing pages. There are very few words included. It’s done so that the book can be laid out and a preschooler can pretty much “read” the recipe and figure out what to do next. I think it helps Abby to “own” the recipe a little bit more. She definitely likes that.

01/24/2011

Abby followed in the footsteps of many a 4 year old girl last week. She started ballet class. I know that ballet is something that most girls do at some point or another, but for whatever reason I didn’t see this phase coming. I just don’t see my daughter as a ballerina. But it turns out that it doesn’t matter whether or not I see her as a ballerina because she sees herself that way. She’s had two lessons so far, and she LOVES it.

I have to admit that it’s pretty cute. She showed me first position last week. I have no idea if what she did actually was first position, but she said it was, and it looked good to me. I never took ballet; I wouldn’t know. She can’t wait to dress in her leotard and ballet slippers. Every day. And pretty much every night we have a discussion about how many more days it is until Monday, when she gets to go back to ballet class.

Then the other night, she threw out this question, “Mommy, does God like watching me do ballet?” I had to think about it for a minute. I wanted to say yes, but I also wanted to have a reason to back up my response. You never know when she’s going to follow up an answer with the question, “Why?”. As I was mentally searching for some Bible verse that might have something to do with God and ballet, I remembered Eric Liddell. (He’s the Chariots of Fire guy- Olympic medalist in 1924.) He was once quoted as saying, “[God] made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.”

So I told her about Eric Liddell, and how when he did something he really loved doing- running,- he felt God smile. I actually got a little choked up thinking about God smiling down on my little girl while she takes her ballet class. I left her in bed, and as I went downstairs, it hit me that the same logic applies to me.

It’s a little harder for me to wrap my head around that one. I have no trouble believing that God looked on Eric Liddell with pleasure when he ran because He clearly gave Liddell a talent, and Liddell was using it in the best way he could. I have no trouble believing that God smiles at my daughter while she learns ballet positions because I know Abby is taking this class with seriousness and with joy. Plus, who wouldn’t smile at a cute girl dancing around in a pink leotard? But can I really believe that when I exercise my gifts with the same passion and seriousness and joy that God is smiling at me? It seems hard to believe, especially when those talents and passions are pretty common, everyday stuff, like cooking meals and reading bedtime stories. It may not sound like much, but I think I’m pretty good at those things, and I really do love doing them. It's hard for me to believe, but I can't help thinking that it just might be true, and that brings a whole added layer of joy to mundane tasks.